by Gay Courter
The genial Arakies were the opposite of the staid Sassoons. They hugged, they shouted, they laughed, they cried—all in the space of a few minutes. Children could run freely through the mansion, racing, rolling toys, throwing balls. Father's Chinese porcelains disappeared for the duration. Other delicate objects were removed. The corridor runners were rolled and put away.
Quite soon Mozelle grew too large to frolic with the children, but she hated to be alone. “I am afraid here without Benu,” she confided the first month after my father had gone.
Many a bride might have felt the same in so large a home, but few had as just cause as Mozelle. Her mother slept in her room at night, even though one durwan was posted outside her door and another in the courtyard below. If she rested during the day, I was expected to keep her company. Her body seemed to swell even as I observed her sleeping. Her chest grew as plump as pillows, her arms and legs thickened, and her belly, which held the venerable object, was that of a female Buddha. So awestruck was I by the metamorphosis that I vowed never to allow the same to happen to my body.
If I could not nap, I would slip downstairs to the terrace, where Grandmother Helene sat on a divan directing the malis to plant more flowers (especially the rare bicolor varieties of roses she adored), trim hedges to her specifications, and fertilize the vegetables and herbs she required for the table. Many afternoons, ladies would arrive about three for rounds of nowta-hasthta, a card game like baccarat. When my mother had entertained guests, I had been ordered to disappear, but Grandmother Helene included me. “Come, advise me on my play,” she asked to flatter me after I had learned the basics.
Gone as well was the rule that I could visit my Raymond grandparents only every other Sabbath. Grandmother Helene declared this nonsense and said I might go whenever I wished.
“May they come here too?” I asked. “They hardly ever see Jonah and Asher.”
She bit her lower lip. “No, your father was firm about that.”
For the most part the Sassoons ignored us. We saw them at the synagogue, but they made a point of not calling at Theatre Road, and I was hardly ever asked back to Kyd Street. On one of the few occasions I did see them, at a Chanukah party at Uncle Saul's, Aunt Bellore questioned me. “Dinah, tell me, is what I hear true? They say that Helene Arakie has a crowd over for a big tamasha every night.”
“Not every night,” I demurred.
“She feeds a crowd at her table, doesn't she? Who visits? Anyone I would know?”
My guard was up, for I thought she was trying to discover if my Raymond grandparents were breaking my father's ban. “If you want the names, ask my Grandmother Helene,” I snapped, and sauntered off.
Toward the end of her pregnancy, Mozelle retreated upstairs, no longer hazarding to transport her bulk—her width was nearly equal to her height—down the marble stairs. She spent her days propped against a mound of Persian pillows, her face as pallid as a new moon, her drooping eyelids giving her a perpetual sleepy expression. Her sausage fingers seemed forever grasping an almond turnover, and its crumbs littered the expanse of her enormous abdomen.
In the last weeks of her confinement, she contracted a severe case of prickly heat, and a filigree of pink welts laced her transparent skin. “Mama! I cannot tolerate it!” she cried out as her itch worsened toward midday. “Please, can't we go to the mountains?” Every one of her relations, except her mother, had fled to Darjeeling.
“You know you must not travel,” Grandmother Helene chided.
As two ayahs patted their mistress's bulk with towels, one of them giggled and jumped back.
“What is it?” I asked.
The second ayah pushed on Mozelle's belly to show me that when the baby moved, visible bumps dotted the landscape of her abdomen. She started to dry Mozelle again, but Mozelle was so irritated at being poked from two directions at once, she lashed out and slapped the girl.
“Mozelle!” her mother admonished as she shooed the servants away. She draped her pouting daughter in a loose cotton sari.
I did not think any less of Mozelle for her outburst. People were known to go mad in Calcutta's heat. Out in the sun your brain would sizzle if you dared remove your clammy topee for even a moment. In the shade, your body bade you to do as little as possible. As the unrelenting heat blasted us, everyone was irritable, and at times we all were stricken with fits of bad behavior. My brothers whined and hit each other. I threw books against the wall, ripped up my drawings, even poured a pitcher of water over my head when I was wearing my fanciest frock.
At the apex of the cruel summer, we were allowed outdoor activity only in the early-morning hours before the sun climbed as high as the top of the rose arbor. My brothers and I were taken on sunrise walks in the Maidan, where we watched with astonishment as the British soldiers paraded in full uniform.
Yali shook her head. “Crazy men.”
“Look”—I pointed—”they wear a different color uniform in the summertime.”
Jonah studied the troops and reported, “They are the old ones soaked with sweat.”
In the worst of the heat, we dozed on charpoys wrapped in wet sheets. The mattresses were removed from the string beds so that the punkah-wallahs could force the stagnant air to circulate around our burning bodies. Wakeful at night, we played quiet games on the terrace. This was the only time Mozelle seemed content. She talked sweetly about the baby, what she might name it, what it might look like.
“Do you think Benu will be back in time?” she asked her mother wistfully.
Grandmother Helene was hopeful. “He said he might.”
“He won't,” I offered from experience. “He is always away more than six months.”
Mozelle sulked, but no one contradicted me.
In early June, Aunt Bellore and Uncle Samuel called on us after Saturday-morning services.
“How much quieter the house is than the last time I was here,” Aunt Bellore said to Grandmother Helene. “It must be a relief to have your relations in the hills.”
Grandmother Helene was not ruffled. “The children find it dull, but I am certain it is best for Mozelle.” Her eyes gleamed. “And whatever is best for my Mazal-Tob is best for Benu's baby.”
Aunt Bellore grimaced. Uncle Saul coughed as he reached for a letter in his coat pocket. “We've had word from my brother.”
Grandmother Helene's dark eyes seemed to fill her round face. She staggered backward, as if in anticipation of a blow. An alert bearer rushed forward and took her arm.
“Didn't mean to alarm you,” Uncle Saul sputtered. He helped her to a seat and handed her the sheaf of papers. “There are letters for you and Mozelle. Unfortunately, he doubts he will be home before September.”
“Just as I said,” I announced unwisely. My aunt glared at me.
“Would you like to see Mozelle?” Grandmother Helene asked Bellore.
“I suppose, if she wouldn't be disturbed.”
“Of course not. Why don't you take her letter up yourself?” When Aunt Bellore had left, Helene offered Uncle Saul refreshment. A few minutes later she had settled him on the terrace and poured his tea.
She fluttered her eyes, gave a little sigh, and said, “Now, tell me, Saul, what exactly does Benu do in China that keeps him away so long?”
“It's rather complicated,” he replied dismissingly.
“Then you will have to tell me the whole story.”
Surprised by the intent gleam in her eye, he looked from her to me. Seeing I was just as curious, the eldest Sassoon brother, and head of the company, considered the matter for a moment and then shrugged. “Perhaps we should start with my Grandfather David, some forty years ago.” He proceeded to tell us that as soon as the East India Company had opened the business to independent investors, David had begun to buy the raw opium grown in Rajputana in northwest India. His job was to transport it by clipper as far as Lintin Island at the mouth of the Pearl River, the pipeline to Canton, the only port the Chinese would open to Westerners. From there, smuggler
s with armed small craft called “scrambling dragons” and “fast crabs” would move the merchandise through a network of pirates, corrupt officials, and dealers to the masses who eagerly devoured the drug. Though he did a steady business, he became frustrated because he was almost always undersold by competitors, especially the Jardine, Matheson network. Still, who wouldn't be content with a profit that, although modest in this lucrative trade, was kingly in any other?
“Wouldn't the Chinese have made out better if they permitted the opium to be imported?” I asked.
My uncle ruffled my hair. “How can she follow this?”
Grandmother Helene beamed at me. “Well, Saul, if you don't give her an answer, she will pester you all afternoon.”
“You're right,” he chuckled. Warming to his role as family chronicler, he related that the prices of opium had remained inflated because the Chinese rulers refused to legalize it. “Then, in the 1830's, an official in the Forbidden City dared to suggest the laws against the drug did nothing more than benefit worthless scoundrels, and proposed legalization for everyone except state administrators, soldiers, and scholars. Not only that, he wanted to place a high tariff on every chest and forbid payment to the 'foreign devils' in any tender except barter merchandise. When my father, Moses, heard the news, he exploded, saying, 'If these regulations are strictly enforced, our opium will rot in our holds.' “
“Why?” I asked. “Wouldn't he sell more of it?”
“Well, it is more involved than that. He required silver, not trade items, to pay for the crop at the auctions.”
“What happened?” Grandmother Helene prodded.
“My father was young and enterprising. He didn't think the restrictions would last. In the meantime, he suggested the Sassoons set up shop in Calcutta, a port a subcontinent closer to China than Bombay.”
“That was wise,” she said, nodding.
“Yes. Within a few months he heard they need be despondent no longer. A new crackdown was under way.”
I was perplexed. “Then it was good that the Chinese said it was bad?”
“In a way, but the emperor was mistaken.”
“Why?” I asked.
“He believed opium was an evil that wasted and killed his subjects.”
“Doesn't it?” I thought of Mama and the hookah.
“Not always,” he said, brushing aside my query with a wave of his hand. “Nevertheless, the emperor thought it did, so he appointed a kinchae—one of four so named in three hundred years—with the power to organize armies, to sentence to death, to take any extreme measure necessary to halt once and for all time the spread of the foreign devils' flower.”
“That’s the poppy, right?” I asked to check if I was following the complex tale.
My uncle nodded perfunctorily and went on to tell us that Lin Tse-hsu, the kinchae, barricaded the foreigners in their homes, holding them hostage for their entire inventory of opium—over half of India's crop that year. James and Alexander Matheson and one of my uncles were among the captives. When word of the Canton quarantine reached England, most patriots—those who realized the balance of trade for tea, silk, and spices could not be maintained without the lucrative opium trade—screamed for war.
Grandmother Helene poured more tea. “Some spoke against it, didn't they?” she asked in a hushed tone.
“A few moralists dared to differ. They believed that ordinary wars of conquest were somehow less wicked. But why? Most wars are fought out of greed—for land or goods or power.” Uncle Saul's tone suggested he didn't wholly believe his own argument.
“Did they go to war?” I asked.
“Yes. Kinchae Lin confiscated and destroyed more than twenty thousand chests by crushing the balls one by one and dumping them into a creek that ran into the Pearl River.”
“Was any of that Sassoon opium?” Grandmother Helene wondered. “No. 'Fortune smiles,' my father wrote to his father. 'We have no partners in Canton, no stock in that foul harbor. The loss to Jardine is our gain.' He sat back and waited until the value of opium in his warehouses doubled. Then, avoiding Lintin Island entirely, he organized a small fleet to make deliveries into Macao, where daring captains were more than willing to sail into smaller ports for the premium paid for the scarce commodity.” Uncle Saul took a long sip from the teacup. “Kinchae Lin could not hold back the flood of entrepreneurs that followed. His fury mounted further when British sailors in Macao were said to have killed a Chinese citizen. He put a price on the capture of English officers, soldiers, and Indian sepoys. The British reacted to this final affront by announcing that opium would continue to flow into China—this time in warships.”
“That was the First Opium War,” Grandmother Helene said to me.
Uncle Saul nodded. “Yes. After Admiral Eliot and his India fleet blockaded access to Canton, they made for Shanghai, leaving port cities along the way running with blood.” His voice rose with enthusiasm. “Within a year a settlement, the Treaty of Nanking, was negotiated, forcing the emperor to compensate us merchants for the opium Kinchae Lin had destroyed and for the expenses of war as well. The most significant provision was that Hong Kong became a crown colony and the ports of Canton, Foochow, Ningpo, Amoy, and Shanghai were opened to trade. Opium was not legalized as such, but the treaty put blinders on the Chinese, who were forbidden to search British ships. By the middle of the 1840's, China was millions of pounds sterling in debt as the pressed cakes made from India's flowers flowed freely to satisfy the insatiable population of smokers.” He leaned back and smiled smugly at Grandmother Helene. She returned his smile with a gracious nod of her head.
I stood up. “But it was wrong!”
“On the contrary, Dinah, it was not fair of the Chinese officials to deprive their people of a product that, once they were accustomed to, they could not relinquish without danger to their health. Don't listen to people who claim we addicted their citizens to opium. Every man makes that choice voluntarily. The Chinese complained we were draining them of silver, but had they not been draining us of silver for more than one hundred years?”
“But—”
“Hush, Dinah!” Grandmother Helene said with unusual severity.
Curious as to the change of tone in the room, Aunt Bellore had come to the door.
“Well, that's enough for now,” Saul said, relieved not to have to respond to me any further.
But Bellore had her piece to add. She grinned as she boasted, “Of course, a ship owned by our family started the Second Opium War.”
“Really?” Grandmother Helene asked with wide eyes.
“Yes. That was some ten years later,” my uncle asserted. “The Arrow, a lorcha leased by the Sassoons, was attacked in the South China Sea. Her cargo was dumped and one of my cousins was kidnapped. The British took up arms, and soon the French joined the fray. After the two navies sailed into Shanghai and marched into Peking, the emperor was forced to negotiate, settling this time for twenty million pounds sterling—more than enough to balance the trade deficit. With the sweep of his pen, he legitimated our family trade.”
“Tell me, what is Benu's part in this?” Grandmother Helene wondered.
“Benu has the aptitude for dealing with the Chinese. He learned the trading dialects and was able to balance the entire equation of the business so adroitly he could squeeze a positive position from almost any transaction.” Saul caught his sister's eye. “For the last several years the Sassoons have been able to control almost three-fourths of the opium in India.”
“That is very impressive. But what is Benu doing that keeps him away from his home—and his wife—for so long?” Grandmother Helene sniffed.
“Right now the Chinese are trying to grow their own flowers,” my uncle continued in a level tone. “Benu must travel from port to port, trying to establish the higher-grade, more expensive imported poppy as the standard in the Chinese marketplace.”
“Why can't you hire others for that task?” Grandmother Helene prodded.
Aunt Bellore boun
ded toward her. “How dare you interfere?”
Uncle Saul hissed a warning to his sister. “The child ...”
Everyone stared at me.
“Go see if Mozelle needs anything,” Grandmother Helene coaxed.
One look at the set of Aunt Bellore's tight mouth prevented me from objecting.
9
I slept beside Mozelle on the afternoon that was to be the beginning of a beginning and the beginning of an end. Two punkah-wallahs fanned us, and from time to time Mozelle's ayah came in to bathe her face, arms, and legs with cool water kept in an earthenware jug. Sleepily I watched the ablutions. The humidity was so dense, the water did not evaporate. Rivulets formed on Mozelle's blistered skin. In the pastel light of the late afternoon she looked like a melon that had begun to spoil. She groaned as she tried to sit up. Her ayah assisted, to no avail, and I came around to the other side to help.
Mozelle stopped us both from lifting her, and fell back. “Ai, Mama!” she cried. She clenched her eyes and bit her lip. She did not seem to recover from the spasm.
“Mozelle!” I shook her. “Get the burra memsahib. Hurry!” I ordered her ayah.
Another tremor racked Mozelle, and her eyes flew open. She stared past me as though something horrifying had attracted her attention. I looked around. Nothing was there. I turned back too late to avoid the arc of vomit that covered one side of my body.
“S-s-sorry . . .” she stammered.
Yali bathed me in rosewater while Mozelle's sobs carried down the hall to the bathroom. When I was clean and dry, Yali had me drink a cup of tea in the nursery.
Grandmother Helene rushed in, her hands tugging at the folds in her dress. “Mozelle is so distressed.”
I shrugged. “I suppose she couldn't stop herself.”
“What a lovely, big girl you are. I will need your help with the boys tonight. Will you do that for me?”
“Yes, of course. May we have dinner on the terrace downstairs?”